Green Like Hope
by Lady Elleth
Summary: Young Nerdanel and the time leading up to her marriage to Fëanor.


Author's Notes: A story for last year's RingCon writing contest. It didn't win anything, but I'm still quite satisfied with the writing itself, and would like to hear the opinions of others as well... so, yeah, this is just a cheap way of saying "please review". Honestly, though. I'd love some criticism.

Summary: Young Nerdanel and the time leading up to her marriage to Fëanor.

Disclaimer: J.R.R. Tolkien en káre eldain. I'm just playing.

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Green Like Hope

Aman was vast, and she wandered it.

She strolled through the lush grass of the meadows around Tirion, sparkling with dew like diamonds in the light of the Trees. Her feet trod the yellow plains on the paths of the wild horses of Valinor into a twilight land of mist and shadows; she wandered down into the far South and curled her toes in the red sand of a desert she had not known save in stories. She parted leaves to find forests humid, wild and strange, trees more tall and flowers more fragrant than even in Valimar.

It was not what she wanted.  
As if by their own will, her feet carried her away. She climbed over rocks and travelled through dales and valleys into the North, followed icy rivers to hidden places and marvelled at how weak the Trees shone here.

She bathed in a mountain lake once, during Telperion's hours, ringed by peaks that would not let more light pass than a silver dusk far off. She swam and dipped beneath the water, relishing in the feeling of her skin breaking into bumps of cold, her hair unbound, swirling, and ahead of her tiny silver fish, darting this way and that, like coins tinkling from one hand into the other, spilling here and there, above, below, around her. She reached the bottom, and scooped up a handful of sand, scattering it, watching it glimmer, swimming through it, playing, turning, her arms outstretched, the currents on her body.

She surfaced into a sea of stars. In the sky above Varda's creations shone. Around her, in a blurring image the myriad pinpricks of light dissolved in the waves she made. Her skin, not sickly pale as in the daylight, but radiant with reflections, dappled with light from above like ice, was beautiful, for once; but she thought it would have been more beautiful if the stars were white-hot, not silver-cold.

She left the water, dried and dressed, and slept. She dreamt of fire, and its touch burned away her imperfections, but that was a dream only. Her image in the mirror of the lake the next morning was no different from before, and she took a stone and dropped it into her face, then turned away to resume her wanderings.

She wandered further, onwards, ever towards the North. It was not cold enough to have her forget the fire she had known, not even when the light of the Trees faded completely and she stumbled through wastes of dark blue and a silver-white carpet spread before her. When she looked back there was only her set of footsteps in the wastes of snow.

It was not what she wanted.  
As if by their own will, her feet carried her away.

She turned once more, and never looked back. Now she understood what her destination should be. The South had been a poor substitute for the fire she had known in his eyes, and the North had been a poor attempt to forget it, neither of which availed.

Her heart grew lighter with each step that bore her nearer to Tirion, and in the end she ran up the marble steps to the place beneath the Mindon Eldalieva, breathless with excitement when she reached the summit of Túna.

Through an open window she saw him. A desk had been placed there, heavy tomes stacked around him, and he never once looked up from the page he was writing although at times he stopped, tapping the end of the quill against his lips, deep in thought.

She departed.  
When she returned home her father was waiting on the doorstep, and his eyes shone as he beckoned his lost daughter inside.

In the following days she had her peace. Mahtan was in the smithy often, and her mother tended to their shop in one of Tirion's busy streets. Nerdanel found herself idle, except for one thing:

Sketches littered her workplace, of him coming up a mountain path behind her (their first meeting), him side by side wandering with her before he had been summoned away; of him at the table by the window, of him standing amid the Trees, outshining Telperion and Laurelin both, and more. Those she hid before her parents returned home, her heart racing and laughter on her lips as her fingers caressed the paper.

During the mingling of the lights she would sometimes leave the house and ascend the hill again, but then the window always was closed. Only once did she see a movement behind the glass.

Three days after her last visit a letter came. Beneath his normal script another note had been attached, in Sarati that were unlike any she had ever seen before. These signs ran from left to right in an image of waves dappled with stars, just like the time she had bathed in the mountain lake: The very image of her travels to forget him.

She had long since given up on that. Fire is hard to forget once one is burned.

The strange script (after some consideration she found she could read it) was an invitation, and the bottom line explained that he called these signs Tengwar.

Following his words, she found herself wandering again, side by side with him.

It was what she wanted.  
Their feet bore them to places she had not seen before, even to the uttermost West of the land where he dared her to look beyond the world. She had not dared. It was not the starless waste she wanted. She wanted the stars and the white-hot fire in his eyes, and the feeling of his lips on hers, but being thrilled with discoveries of their own they talked only little, and she never spoke of it.

But before long her wish was granted, and all other discoveries paled in comparison. They returned to Tirion, feasts were held, and the city celebrated the betrothal of Curufinwë Fëanáro with Nerdanel daughter of Mahtan.

At times now she thought about escaping alone, but the silver band on her finger bound her as effectively as any chain. Often enough she heard his voice raised in strife with his stepmother or half-brothers, and he was not to be found afterwards. In those times she perceived the shadows bright light may cast, and the damage fire may do.

She found that his fire could melt her like wax, so completely that sometimes she could not remember where she ended and he began, and after a while, accepting it, she no longer sought to find out.

A year passed.

Dreams came upon her, of a threefold light far brighter and a darkness more encompassing than any would believe. She dreamt of fire too, of eight flames going out one by one (the brightest first, and only the last lingered long and far away) and another one, separate, diminishing as time passed and the others died.

Waking she shook her head and sought his warmth, for the dreams had made her shiver.  
She remembered little of them after waking, but even so she tried to ignore the feeling of dread that remained.

A week later they spoke their vows - though he had asked it of her she did not wear red like fire, for fire was already quickening within her.

Defying the darkness of her dreams she smiled and wore green.

Green like hope.


End file.
